Over at the VC, Jonathan Adler has a post on his new article arguing that paying compensation for regulatory takings would enhance conservation efforts, rather than undermine them as is conventionally thought. He will be posting on this issue over the next week. This is a very important issue, and I look forward to his posts.

The conventional wisdom holds that requiring compensation for environmental land-use controls would severely limit environmental protection efforts. There are increasing reasons to question this assumption. Both economic theory and recent empirical research demonstrate that failing to compensate private landowners for the costs of environmental regulations discourages voluntary conservation efforts and can encourage the destruction of environmental resources. The lack of a compensation requirement also means that land-use regulation is â€œunderpricedâ€ as compared to other environmental protection measures for which government agencies must pay. This results in the â€œoverconsumptionâ€ of land-use regulations relative to other environmental protection measures that could be more cost-effective at advancing conservation goals. While any specific compensation proposal would present implementation questions, there are reasons to believe that a compensation requirement could improve environmental conservation efforts.

Ben Barros

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